My Old School Closes

Schools are the beating heart of neighborhoods, of the multi-generational communities that nurture families and enrich society. Perhaps the most successful social accomplishment of the Catholic Church in the United States has been the parochial school system, which educated generations of immigrant families and helped create a successful American middle class. That need still exists, of course, for newer generations of immigrants, but sadly there are fewer and fewer schools around to meet that need. It always saddens me to hear of a school closing. But I was especially saddened when it was announced the school I myself once attended will close this year.

Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Parish Elementary School has served its Bronx, NY, neighborhood since it opened (with 90 students) in 1907 . When I graduated 8th grade in 1961, Tolentine (as it was commonly called) had some 1400 students.  After 112 years, it will close at end of the current school year this coming June.

The Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Parish and School Facebook site fittingly describes itself as "A place to share the memories of the great place we either grew up in or went to school at or worshipped at and the friends and people we found along the way." I was fortunate to do all three – to grow up, go to school, and worship there.

And what a sight it was in those days, Sunday after Sunday, as thousands of people poured out of the 13 Sunday Masses celebrated in both upper and lower churches! (Sunday Masses upstairs at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 12:50 and downstairs at 9, 10:15, 11:15, 12:10, and 12:55.) In fact, almost everything about that great Gothic church - referred to by some as "the cathedral of the Bronx" – was impressive. Closing the celebration of the parish's 50th anniversary on September 10, 1957, no less a luminary than New York's Francis Cardinal Spellman himself said, "Very few cities in the United Sates have cathedrals which have the beauty of your parish church." It was a distinction the neighborhood took pride in.

In post-war Catholic New York, parish and neighborhood were often largely one and the same. Of course, people left their neighborhoods to work elsewhere in the city, and the wider world's influence was certainly felt within those communities. But, at least when I was growing up, most of our day-to-day needs, both social and spiritual seemed to be met there in the parish. Such neighborhoods were overwhelmingly hard-working blue-collar, working class communities – at a time when strong unions and the general post-war prosperity instilled the forward-looking optimism that goes with a sense of collective upward mobility, all of which our society has sadly since lost.

The parish school was an old, early 20th-century building, barely able to accommodate the 1400 or so students enrolled in it. In winter, the heat sometimes didn’t work, and we would sit in class with our coats on. Such privations probably would seem unacceptable to many people today, but then they seemed perfectly normal, completely coherent with how we lived – in apartment buildings where likewise the heat also didn’t always work in winter! 

Surely teaching 50+ kids five days each week had to be a real challenge. Some of my teachers, my 8th grade teacher, for example, were quite experienced. For my 5th grade teacher, on the other hand, we were her first class. The amazing thing, I think, about the parochial school system in those days was that it all somehow managed to work – and, on balance, really worked quite well. Again, what made it all work so well was that it was coherent with the rest of our world. Adults at that time largely supported the school, valued the Sisters, and almost always sided (if that is the right word) with them.

It was a world of clearly defined moral rules and social expectations. Not everyone benefited equally from those rules and expectations. But, for many at that time, the burdens seemed bearable and paid off as guideposts toward a reasonably predictable and stable way of life.  In the half-century and more that followed, enormous economic and cultural changes have eviscerated the opportunities available for working class people with modest educational background and have radically diminished their prospects for financial and social stability in successfully functioning families. Social change always has winners and losers, and 21st-century America has paid a price for the alienation those losses produced.

Back then, parochial schools were, as I said, fairly basic. We had no kindergarten, just 8 grades. In the fall of 1954, I started 1st grade at Tolentine. I had laywomen as teachers in grades 1, 3, and 4, and Blauvelt Dominican Sisters in all the other grades. School was so crowded at what was then the height of the "Baby Boom," that classes were half-day sessions through grade 5. By then the new parish high school had been built, and the old high school building became part of the elementary school, increasing the amount of classroom space available. Obviously we lacked the educational benefits of contemporary technology, but beyond that we suffered no noticeable academic disadvantage from such large classes, and may well have been better educated in certain respects than some are today. Side by side with an all-encompassing, seemingly “otherworldly” spirituality, we received a rudimentary appreciation of art and music, learned practical skills like the right way to write a “friendly letter” and a “business letter,” and studied civics and were taught to take seriously the responsibilities of citizenship. 

Midway through 3rd grade, I was “skipped” to the middle of the 4th grade. Having students “skip” a grade was also, I suspect, one more way of dealing with the then widespread overcrowding!

I most certainly did not want to “skip.” Being wrenched out of my class and dropped down into another one was certainly destabilizing. And it meant dropping me into the middle of a grade the first half of which I had already missed. In particular, what I had missed that year was long division – something I struggled with for quite some time. I cried a lot that spring, struggling with my long-division homework! 

Long-division aside, I liked most of what we studied. Some subjects were new in 4th grade – history and geography, for example. Some subjects – history again and religion – I especially enjoyed.  Each September, when school resumed and we got our new textbooks, I rushed to read through the entire history book as quickly as possible, so eager was I to learn, so in love was I with other times, other places, and other possibilities.

Needless to say, in parochial school in the 1950s, it was religion that permeated every day of the school year and every subject of study. We prayed at the beginning and the end of the day (and before and after lunch). We recited the Morning Offering in the morning, the Angelus at mid-day, various other prayers throughout the course of the school day, and an Act of Contrition at day’s end. 

Whenever a priest came into the classroom to speak to us or to our teacher, before he departed we would reverently request his priestly blessing. Then we would all (including Sister) dutifully drop to our knees while Father raised his hands in a semicircle and then made the sign of the cross over us, saying Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Meanwhile, from celebrating Our Lady’s birthday in September, to the daily Rosary in October, decorating the crib at Christmas, and making the Stations of the Cross in Lent, all the way to Mary’s annual May Crowning at the end of that month, the calendar followed a set cycle of taken-for-granted devotions that punctuated the year and marked the recurring rhythm of months and seasons.

And, of course, there were the special life-cycle celebrations, such as First Confessions, First Communion, and Confirmation, for which the school faithfully prepared us. On Saturday, June 4, 1955, at an 8:00 a.m. Solemn High Mass, having now officially reached the “age of reason,” I made my First Communion - after having made my First Confession the day before. What I actually remember most about my First Communion was how much time we spent practicing beforehand. The Sisters were not about to leave anything to chance! 

The other significant life-cycle sacrament was, of course, Confirmation, which I received in the 5th grade on Sunday, September 22, 1957. The Bishop was a Dutch Augustinian, Peter Canisius van Lierde (1907-1995), who held the exalted post of sacristan to Pope Pius XII. As for the ceremony itself, I was most invested in the confirmation name I had chosen. I remember carrying a card between my fingers with my name on it. I remember a priest then taking the card and saying the name to the Bishop (in what I later would learn was the nominative case) and then the Bishop addressing me (in what I later would learn was the vocative case): Michaele, Signo te signo crucis; et confirmo te chrismate salutis. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

Much more important, however, was becoming an altar boy. In those days, it was considered a great privilege (albeit a common one) to serve Mass. I eagerly joined my classmates to the rectory chapel where we practiced the complex maneuvers of moving the missal from the epistle side of the altar to the gospel side and then back again, carrying (and kissing) the cruets with the wine and water, ringing the bells, walking with the priest at the altar rail and carrying the communion plate, and so much more. And, of course, there was the Confiteor and all the other Latin responses to memorize, starting with the psalm response at the foot of the altar: Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam!

Serving as an altar boy – at Sunday Masses, weekday Masses, Low Masses, Sung Masses, Nuptial Masses, Funeral Masses, Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Stations of the Cross, Forty Hours, and the crowning event as an 8th grader, serving at Christmas Midnight Mass – was among the more unambiguous joys of parochial school life. Funeral Masses were a very frequent assignment, since every funeral required a full complement of four servers. (We especially looked forward to funerals since they got us out of school for an hour; and, if assigned to a Saturday morning funeral, we were guaranteed the next funeral on a school day!),

As I remarked at the time of my 50th High School reunion, we became judges and lawyers, policemen and priests, teachers and truck-drivers.  The school did its job and did it very well. 

And it will be missed, for that work is still very much needed today!

Laetare Sunday: a Father and his Sons

Today is Laetare Sunday, which gets its name from the opening words of today’s traditional Introit: Laetare, Jerusalem (“Rejoice, Jerusalem”). Our Lenten pilgrimage is half-over, and we are already half-way to Easter.  So, on this 4th Sunday of Lent, the Church replaces her somber violet vestments with bright rose-colored vestments, adorns the altar with flowers, and allows for a greater use of the organ. These are external symbols of the joy which we are meant to feel at mid-Lent as we prepare for the Easter feast – whether we are new Catholics preparing to receive the sacraments of initiation at Easter or life-long Catholics called to a life of ongoing conversion and discipleship. At an earlier time in the Church’s history, when the observance of Lent was so much stricter, this mid-Lent moment of relaxation must have been much valued and much more appreciated than it is now, when it is hardly noticed apart from the always popular rose vestments.

Speaking of popular, the Gospel reading assigned to this Sunday in this year of the 3-year Lectionary cycle (which I will not get to preach on this year, since I will be celebrating the Scrutiny Mass instead) is the ever-popular (perhaps overly popular) Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, commonly called the "Parable of the Prodigal Son," sometimes the "Parable of the Two Sons" (which is closer to what it is actually about), sometimes the "Parable of the Forgiving Father" (the main point of the parable). 

Of course, the main figure in the parable is, in fact, the father, who is obviously meant to represent God (as God has been revealed to us by Jesus). That he must be meant to represent God is evident not just from the context (cf. Luke 15:1-3), but from the obvious fact that he hardly resembles your typical human father.

On the other hand, if we forget that the parable's father is a stand-in for God and consider him and his family in human terms, then we get a very messy situation, indeed a veritable parable of family dysfunction. We start with a common-enough story of a bad (but presumably charming) younger son, who gets his way with his father, and a good, dutiful, older son, who seems unappreciated and hence is full of frustration and resentment. It would not be hard at all to find any number of analogies for that in human families and society. (An obvious Old Testament analogy is, of course, Jacob's favoring his son Joseph over Joseph's older brothers and the extreme jealousy and resentment this then produced in the older brothers.)

As the parable begins, however, the bad son really does go too far, successfully manipulating his father to give him his inheritance in advance - and then leaving town. Did he always plan to escape village life for the big city, or did he leave because what other option would there have been after doing such a  despicable thing to his father? In any case, he leaves, lives the high life, then loses everything, and is reduced to a total loss not only of money and resources but of any residual self-respect. Coming to his senses, he remembers how he manipulated his father in the past and reasons how he can do so again. So he heads home, having prepared a silly speech to conceal his arrogance in the subtle language of false humility. 

That his father sees him from a distance is not, presumably, a statement about the father's good eyesight, but rather is intended to suggest that his father was on the look-out for him, that his father wanted him back. (So the bad son's guess that his father would take him back was accurate.) The son starts his rehearsed speech, but his overjoyed father has no interest in anything other than getting his son back. He promptly restores him to his proper status and throws a party.

In a world without refrigeration, if you kill a fattened calf then you pretty much need to invite everybody. What the neighbors thought of the prodigal son is unstated. Perhaps they too appreciated his manipulative charms. Or perhaps they despised him as he deserved to be despised, but came anyway out of respect for his father.

The only one who didn't come was the older, dutiful son, whose frustration and resentment now finally explode. After all these years of faithful service, now he too finally misbehaves. If the neighbors can come out of respect for the father, how much more should the dutiful son do so? In an honor-based family culture, the son's place is by his father's side, supporting him, not undermining him, no matter how righteous his resentment!

Never one to stand on his own dignity, the father goes out to plead with his son, an astonishing reversal of roles, surely as shocking to the neighbors as the father's undignified earlier running to welcome back his younger son.  Father and older son argue, the son finally getting to express his long-felt frustration and resentment. And there the parable ends, the conflict unresolved - leaving us (who presumable identify with the dutiful son) to decide whether to come in and join the party on the father's terms or else to remain outside condemned to a forever of frustration and resentment.  

As the context makes clear - to them (those who complained that Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them), Jesus addressed this parable - we are presumed to identify with the older son and are being challenged, like to older son, to come to the party, to enter the kingdom, not on our own terms, our own human notions of entitlement, but on the Father's terms.

While such behavior on the part of an ordinary human father might be unusual in human terms, God's behavior as exemplified by the father in the parable vividly illustrates the topsy turvy character of the kingdom, where the standards of this world no longer apply and we are challenged to live on God's terms rather than on our own. 

Finally, the father's lack of preoccupation with his dignity (dividing his property,  seeking his son, running to him, going outside to plead with the older son) suggest a new, very different model of behavior, both individually in our interpersonal relationships and institutionally as a Church in relation to the secular world.

Towards a Saner World

The middle section of Andrew Sullivan's weekly article in Friday's New York magazine  -

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/andrew-sullivan-mueller-summary-is-a-big-win-for-america.html - 
is even more than usually especially well worth reading. 

It is about "intergenerational care," the kind of inter-generational mixing that was routine for most of human history (until our own unhappy age of culturally prescribed loneliness), and focuses on his own experience of growing up with his elderly grandmother in his childhood home. I too grew up with my grandmother in my childhood home. She brought a unique dimension to our family life and was our family's link not only across time, connecting the different generations, but also across space, connecting us Americans with an Italy that was both left behind but always somehow the in the background.

Sullivan's article is an appeal to take that once virtually universal experience of inter-generational community seriously again as a recipe for finding ourselves in a saner world, repairing "human bonds, broken by capitalism and modernity and loneliness."

Everyone should read it!

Dynastic Politics

For several Sundays since the beginning of March, CNN has been airing  a series entitled The Bush Years: Family, Duty, Power, which purports to be "the story behind the Bushes - America's most powerful political dynasty." Episode 5, scheduled for this past Sunday was pre-empted by TV's obsessive-compulsive coverage of the reactions to the Mueller Report. That says more about cable news than it does about the Bushes, but it made me pause to consider why I care about this series at all and why I wished CNN had stuck to its Sunday schedule and abandoned its All Mueller, All the Time routine for some other occasion!

It is, as I have often remarked, one of the curiosities of American culture how mesmerized we have repeatedly become by powerful, wealthy families (e.g., Roosevelts, Kennedys, Bushes), apparently confirming the thesis that monarchy and aristocracy are ultimately much more natural - and perhaps for that reason much more congenial to many - as a way of organizing social and political life. Back in 1988, I remember how a close friend, a former graduate school classmate, horrified me by telling me he had voted for George H.W. Bush for president. His reason? Bush came from a good family, was well bred, had an aristocratic (in American terms) background which better prepared him for serious leadership. With my own academic background in classical political philosophy I had to admit his argument made a certain sort of sense (although its applicability in our contemporary context may seem increasingly strained).. 

It is an argument that seems to resonate as well with the makers of this documentary. CNN had previously done a documentary series on the less properly pedigreed but correspondingly that much glamorous Kennedys, who made up for what they lacked in old-school substance with celebrity style. The series about the less glamorous but better pedigreed Bushes employs lots of old footage, replete with interviews with family members, historians, and  journalists, to weave together an attractive portrayal of complex individuals living out their complex heritage in complex contemporary circumstances. Personality and character count - in politics as in the rest of life. So there is much to be learned about public figures from their family dynamics and the personal and private highs (like heroism in war) and lows (like the death of a daughter) that they have experienced both before and during their public careers.

Since the Bush family story is well known, I think it is the overall trajectory rather than the already familiar details that a series such as this may serve to highlight. The first President Bush may have presented himself as a self-made conservative Texas oil-man, which in some ways he was. But he was also (and inescapably so) the son of a liberal Republican Senator from Connecticut, who supported civil rights and birth control, who opposed Joe McCarthy, and whom President Eisenhower could envisage as a possible future president. The family history from grandfather Prescott Bush to grandson President George W. Bush is an interesting family story, but it is also the even more interesting story of the evolution of the Republican party and of the virtual extinction of the high-browed, high-minded, moderate-to-liberal republicanism that once characterized the "establishment" of both the party and the nation. My friend who voted for Bush in 1988 may well have hankered for the virtues of that "establishment," but the compromises candidate Bush had made to get to 1988 already heralded the demise of those virtues in our national political life (and even more so in Bush's political party).

Most Americans don't spring from prominent, Bush-like families, and few achieve anything comparable to the Bushes' political power. But duty (the middle term in the series' sub-title) is accessible to all, or at least can be when citizens are socialized accordingly. So, along with dramatizing the evolution of the Republican party and its consequential impact on our political culture, the series also illustrates the significant impact of generational change - from the duty-governed political ethos of the "greatest generation" of the President Bush who fought in World War II (as did Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford) to the very different moral world-view and values of subsequent generations.

What the two English-speaking imperial capitals (Washington and London) have in common right now is the sorry spectacle of the collapse of the political class. (The political class is more diverse in background than the old oligarchy of Roosevelts and Buishes that tied to pass itself off as an aristocracy. It includes the newer "meritocratic" elite, arrivistes like the Clintons and Obama.) This collapse may have multiple roots, but one of them is certainly the loss of the older rationales for exercising power, rooted in family and duty. The Bush Years celebrates what it chronicles, but it also chronicles its definitive demise. 

After Mueller

Perhaps only President Trump (and presumably his Republican party acolytes) could have the effrontery to claim "Total Exoneration" based on Attorney General Barr's summary of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Report - given that one of the very few sentences actually quoted by Barr from Mueller's report states: "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

It is, of course, completely unsurprising that in our post-fact, post-truth world, each faction simply goes to its respective corner and reproduces its talking points. All the more reason, therefore, why the entire report (or, at least, those parts which are legally able to be released) should be made public immediately. Furthermore, the House should subpoena, Barr, Rosenstein, and, above all, Mueller himself to testify under oath about the report's conclusions.

Based on Barr's summary, it seems we can conclude that:

1) there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election;

2) "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities" [Mueller's words]; and

3) as already quoted from Mueller above, "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

Granted that the President and his associates have been cleared of any explicit conspiracy with the Russians, that still leaves plenty for Congress to investigate.

Congress also has other things to do, however. One of the many unfortunate consequences of Watergate (besides journalistic self-righteousness) has been our epidemic of obsession with political scandal. Just as legislation should not primarily be done by the courts, neither should our politics primarily be fought out in judicial proceedings. The Democrats did not win so overwhelmingly in 2018 because voters were obsessed with White House scandals but because voters were justifiably worried about protecting their health care and other such issues. And the Democrats will win the presidency in 2020, if they win it, not by obsessing over White House scandals but by offering voters an alternative to the present Administration which addresses the issues voters care about, something Democrats used to be rather good at and could still become good at again.